Bear Hugs are Optional

[Moosenogger]

I have a lot of regulars who enjoy chatting me up. Part of my job is walking from customer to customer and asking if they need help finding anything.

Today I had a regular give me a bear hug after I asked if he needed anything. I wasn't too weirded-out, since he's never said anything creepy to me in the past. (So many older gentleman have. Blegh.) I didn't reciprocate, though. I barely hug my family, let alone strangers.

[Cooper]

I have a pretty large personal space bubble. I tend to preface hugs with: "I don't do this often, so you know this is special."

Mind you, that doesn't mean I tend to be friends with people with large personal space bubbles. I had a few that liked to glomp me frequently, and one who liked to greet me by touching my hair. (It was one of those things where it was the person doing it that made it seem non-threatening, despite the action.)

We had a teacher for a while that would have screamed pedophile if he wasn't so harmless. He once walked up to me, grabbed my shawl, and started talking about how his sister knitted those.

Meanwhile I was: Can you please let go of my shirt? Please?

It got to the point where he had to announce at the beginning of trimesters he knew he had a personal space problem. If you asked him to stop he would.